I accidentally spilled cooking oil all over my floor(tiles). I tried washing my floor with water and then wiping it with dry cloth but it gets even worse. How can I effectively clean up the cooking oil spill?

What kind of floor is it? Wooden or laminated or tiles or something else?
– holroyDec 13 '15 at 20:14

Tiles, sorry I should have mentioned it here
– ShashankDec 14 '15 at 5:05

Key point is that once you've used whatever to absorb the bulk of the spill (rags, towels, kitty litter, etc. as suggested in many of the answers), you need to use something detergent based to cut the remaining oil film; water alone won't do it. Water with dish detergent is probably the best/most readily available option.
– Anthony XSep 23 '17 at 14:56

13 Answers
13

First, you should cover the cooking oil in either kitty litter (I've found this works best, but you may not always have it) or baking soda. After waiting about 15 minutes, you can use paper towels to pick up and throw out the kitty litter/baking soda.

Next, you can use a piece of bread to wipe up any oil that is left. A sponge also works here. Lastly, mop the floor with dish soap and warm water. You may need to repeat some of the steps more than once for the best result.

You could use coconut husk to absorb all cooking oil. If not available, you could also use ordinary paper for the same. Thus you could later use this wasted oil at least for igniting something.Most probably, in the case if you have a wood burner.Try to clean your tile with these, not leaving even a drop of oil behind.

Next, I would prefer dish washing liquid to do a final touch to your area. Take some dish washing liquid and apply it onto the area affected, with a scrubber.Wait for some time.This is used to absorb the oil left overs if any.At last, with a wet cloth, wipe out the area. And make the floor dry with a ceiling fan.

Well i have been through the same situation but I spilled like half litre of cooking oil and my mom was about to come in home in half and hour so what did I do... First thing I did was to go to Google then I read what suggestions were given here but I had no item like napkin or bread in my house so I poured baking soda all over the oil then waited around 10 mins i found some old clothes and mopped the oil but still there was a little bit of oil on the floor so I get my Washing powder poured it on left oil took a brush brushed that floor and mopped it that's it last thing is to do is to switch on the fan or exhaust fan in kitchen and voilà it's done :)

Wash with a sponge or sponge mop lightly dampened with dishwashing liquid (some brands are specially marked as "grease cutting" or "removes grease"; these are the best for this), then dry with either a dry sponge, towel, or paper towel. It's the detergent action that will remove the oil from the tile.

I'm not 100% sure whether you're asking how to remove any staining from the oil, or whether to restore the floor to something you can walk across without slipping and sliding everywhere because its oily. And when you say 'tiles', it's not clear whether you mean ceramic tiles, or terracotta or other material. If the tiles are glazed ceramic, then you may have some residual staining in the grout between them - that will be next to impossible to remove without scraping out existing grout and redoing it. If the tiles are unglazed, or unsealed, then you won't get the stain out of those either. If, though, the problem is slipperiness, then washing the floor with a strong cleaner such as Flash, then rinsing/mopping with hot water afterwards, twice, should stop that.

After wiping most of the oil that you can trap with paper towels, use some kitchen wipes until all oil is off. These have grease cutting agents that just don't push oil around but instead get them off.

Something like the Chlorox wipes - the Kirkland (Costco) kitchen wipe is the best in my opinion mainly because of its size and durability for such oily tasks.

I have used this method successfully for not so major oil spills. Good luck!

Soak as much of it up with a large old towel that you will throw away. Then liberally pour salt all over the spill. Lots of it. After about 15 minutes sweep up the salt. Then wash the floor with vinegar and Dawn dish detergent. Learned this when working at a fried fish resturant

Place a tissue paper on the oil spilled on the floor. Tissue papers will soak all the oil particles from the floor. Do this several times on the portion where the oil is spilled. After soaking the oil on tissue paper you can clean the floor with wet cloth.

We're looking for long answers that provide some explanation and context. Don't just give a one-line answer; explain why your answer is right, ideally with citations. Answers that don't include explanations may be removed.

2

Could you please add more explanation to this? Is there any specific way you should use the corn starch? Will that actually pick up everything?
– michaelpri♦Dec 30 '15 at 6:10

Thank you for your interest in this question.
Because it has attracted low-quality or spam answers that had to be removed, posting an answer now requires 10 reputation on this site (the association bonus does not count).